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Discussion on: How to create a Comment Section for your Django Blog!

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Replies for: What if i don't need the user to be logged in? I'm working in a comment system for my personal site without a registration system :-) Thanks.

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radualexandrub profile image
Radu-Alexandru B •

Hmm... I didn't think about this option. But the process should be even simpler than the instructions I've written here.

Firstly, in our models.py we don't need an author based on User anymore, we will just use TextField():

# models.py
from django.db import models
from django.utils import timezone

class BlogComment(models.Model):
    blogpost_connected = models.ForeignKey(
        BlogPost, related_name='comments', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    author = TextField()
    content = TextField()
    date_posted = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.blogpost_connected.title[:40]
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[Optional] We can still return the number of comments if we want in our main BlogPost class model in models.py:

# models.py
class BlogPost(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    ...

    @property
    def number_of_comments(self):
        return BlogComment.objects.filter(blogpost_connected=self).count()
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Make the changes to our database:

# CLI/Terminal
>> cd C:\Projects\...\YourDjangoAppMainFolder
>> python manage.py makemigrations
>> python manage.py migrate
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Create the same forms.py with an author:

# forms.py
from django import forms
from .models import BlogComment

class NewCommentForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = BlogComment
        fields = ['author', 'content']
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And now in views.py we don't need to check if self.request.user.is_authenticated anymore, we will just send the form as context to our HTML-based blogpost_detail.html.

# views.py
from .models import BlogPost, BlogComment
from .forms import NewCommentForm

class BlogPostDetailView(DetailView):
    model = BlogPost
    # template_name = MainApp/BlogPost_detail.html
    # context_object_name = 'object'

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        data = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)

        comments_connected = BlogComment.objects.filter(
            blogpost_connected=self.get_object()).order_by('date_posted')
        data['comments'] = comments_connected
        data['comment_form'] = NewCommentForm( )

        return data

    def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        new_comment = BlogComment(content=request.POST.get('content'),
                                  author=request.POST.get('author'),
                                  blogpost_connected=self.get_object())
        new_comment.save()
        return self.get(self, request, *args, **kwargs)
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And finally in our blogpost_detail.html we'll show directly the forms without checking if user.is_authenticated.

<!-- COMMENTS  -->
<h2>Leave your comment!</h2>
<div id="comments_section">

  <form method="POST">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <div class="form-group">
      {{ comment_form }}
      <button class="btn btn-info" type="submit">Add comment <i class="fas fa-comments"></i></button>
    </div>
  </form>

  {% if comments %}
  <strong class="text-secondary">{{ object.number_of_comments }} Comment{{ object.number_of_comments|pluralize }}</strong>
  <hr>
  <ul>
    {% for comment in comments %}
    <li>           
     <div>
        <span>
          <strong class="text-info">{{ comment.author }} </strong>
          <small class="text-muted">{{ comment.date_posted }}</small>
        </span>
        <p>
          {{ comment.content|safe }}
        </p>
      </div>
    </li>
    {% endfor %}
  </ul>
  {% else %}
    <strong class="text-secondary">No comments yet...</strong>
  {% endif %}

</div>
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Hope all of these will work. Good Luck!

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tejkrishna profile image
tejkrishna • • Edited

Thanks for publishing Python information. This is very understanding and useful to me

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jiraiyasennin profile image
Dostow**-> •

Amazing!! Thank you a lot!! It's more or less how i thought it should be, now i can continue with the project :-D